A Couple Things

1. I went to see Adventureland Saturday and thought it was good but far less funny than I expected. I mean I laughed and all, but it mostly made me sad. Which is fine, except a little warning would be nice. I like to go in expecting the whole sad thing. (I also like to read the last pages of books ahead of time; I'm not so big on surprised). 

Adventureland also made me miss driving. Which is strange, I suppose, but one of the things I miss most about living in the suburbs is driving home late at night with the streets nearly empty and your headlights sweeping across the road, maybe a sad, quiet song playing. I loved that. 

I was three in 1987 (when Adventureland is set) and I certainly never worked in an amusement park, but the world of the movie still feels totally familiar--an experience I expect many people will have. 

2. In a 280 word review of Buffalo Lockjaw, TONY's Drew Toal manages to say that Buffalo is as grim and frostbitten a city as one can find in the continental U.S. (someone doesn't know their grim and frostbitten cities very well, I suspect), refer to it as a "bleak upstate land," and reference the 0-for-4 Superbowl run. Now if he'd also managed to wedge in Brett Hull's skate and the Appalachia-esque economy I might have been impressed by his "Buffalo is a miserable hole" dedication. But as it is it's just lazy reviewing. I mean, he says that the "scenes of high-blood-alcohol regression flirt with Northern-gothic clichés"--I might argue for realism there*--but then manages to spit out a review where he regurgitates the most hackneyed cliches about Buffalo despite his limited space? How tedious.

*I haven't read the book yet so I can't really say, but I would bet Ames isn't exaggerating when it comes to Buffalo and drinking.

44 Places to Go

BuffaloPundit points out that Buffalo made the New York Times list of places to go in 2009. Naturally I went to see what they had to say. In part:

With the exception of senatorial hopefuls, many New Yorkers write off the rest of the Empire State as a cultural hinterland. But the chilly rustbelt city of Buffalo now has something to thrill cultural junkies other than its scattered specimens of pioneering early 20th-century architecture: the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

It then goes on to talk about the Burchfield Penney's Buffalo-centric collection. It's great to see the museum get the attention, but it's also a funny write-up.

I went to the new Burchfield Penney when I was in Buffalo for the holidays. I say "new" because the museum has in fact existed--first as the Charles Burchfield Center, then as the Burchfield Art Center, and finally as the Burchfield Penney Art Center--since the 60s. It's the building which is new, not the Center, although you wouldn't get that impression from the Times mention. Still, it's very nice and by all accounts a huge improvement. And don't get me wrong, I think the new Burchfield Penney is a lovely addition for Buffalo and totally worth seeing.
But it doesn't suddenly turn Buffalo into destination travel. And, while the New York Times makes it sound like it's such a great thing that Buffalo can now include, when they couldn't previously, a nice art museum in it's collection of tourist-worthy sites, that makes for strange reading, because it's not even the best art museum in the city. That would be the art museum, oh I don't know, right across the street. Also not a new museum. (Although it could use some new building space as well).

That's not to take away from the Burchfield Penney or their pretty (on the inside) new building. I'm just saying that Buffalo wasn't any more or less a cultural hinterland before it was built than it is now. Still, it's nice for the city to be on a places-to-go list with the likes of Vienna and the Red Sea, I'm sure. If nothing else, it's a much cheaper trip.